SHANGHAI (AsiaNews): St Ignatius Cathedral in Shanghai was reopened on December 16 more than two years after it was shuttered up for major renovation.

The century-old cathedral was suffering from serious leakage and flaking of the ceiling that was considered a safety issue. The renovation project has kept the original structure of the cathedral, which was named a national monument by the State Council in 2013.

SHANGHAI (UCAN): Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who has been under house arrest in Sheshen Seminary near Shanghai since he called the bluff of the government at his ordination in July 2012, has taken up two jobs in the same Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association that he quit.

Bishop Ma accepted the two positions as a member of the standing committee in the Patriotic Association of Shanghai at a joint meeting of the association and the Church Affairs Commission of Shanghai on January 20.

SHANGHAI (SE): What began as a study of the legacy of the late Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian, from Shanghai, and scheduled to be held on the centennial anniversary of his birth on June 20, was first disrupted when a command performance in Beijing co-opted many of its delegates, and then by the political intrigue of whether the caged Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin would appear or not.

HONG KONG (SE): As silence from the government, local Church and the Vatican shrouds the controversial letter of apology posted on the blog of the auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, the environment has become ripe for rumours.

SHANGHAI (SE): The Catholic world in China was left wondering if it was seeing a dramatic episcopal U-turn or a bit of official sleight of hand from the government when a letter appeared on the blog of Shanghai’s caged bishop on June 12, announcing his regret at having resigned from the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association at his ordination ceremony on 7 July 2012.

SHANGHAI (SE): The birdcage bishop in Shanghai, Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, has a dream. He dreams that the president of China, Xi Jinping, and Pope Francis will at least have the opportunity to shake hands while the two men are in the United States of America (US) this September.

SHANGHAI (SE): A Catholic person in Shanghai has penned a letter to Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who is currently confined to the seminary at Sheshan on the outskirts of the city, stripped of his status as a bishop and suspended from exercising his priestly ministry for two years by government authorities, telling him that he is not alone, but is very much in the prayers of the faithful people of his diocese.

HONG KONG (SE) : The former bishop of Hong Kong, Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, said in an entry on his blog that the recent move to strip the newly ordained auxiliary Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin in Shanghai of his mitre and crosier by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China is probably just a cover for the real culprits.